A new janassid (Chondrichthyes, Petalodontiformes) from the Late Mississippian of Alabama, USA

ABSTRACT

Teeth from the late Mississippian Bangor Limestone, Monteagle Limestone, and Pride Mountain Formation (early to middle Chesterian = late Viséan–early Serpukhovian) of northern Alabama, USA, are designated as Cavusodus whitei, gen. et sp. nov. The species is similar to Cypripediodens cristatus Duffin and Ward, known only from the Eyam Limestone Formation (Mississippian, late Viséan) of Derbyshire, England. Cypripediodens cristatus, the only species of the genus, is distinguished by teeth having an elongate crown, an apical cusp having a nearly circular cross-section, a secondary cusp on the lingual face, and several cristae on the lingual heel. Cavusodus whitei teeth resemble those of Cypripediodens cristatus but differ in lacking the secondary cusp, in having a more labiolingually compressed apical cusp, in possessing more robust lingual cristae, and in possessing a longitudinal groove on the labial face. The genera comprising the Janassidae are reconsidered. It is proposed that only Janassa, Cholodus, and Cypripediodens be retained, in addition to the new genus.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:DB68190C-E9E6-48C7-B5A7-8A72D174CBCE

KEYWORDS:

• Bangor Limestone
• Monteagle Limestone
• Pride Mountain Formation
• Carboniferous
• Janassidae
• Cypripediodens

Acknowledgments

I thank Larry White for finding and donating the holotype of Cavusodus whitei and for providing information on Locality 1. I thank Michael Hansen and Dale Gnidovec (OGM) for help in locating the negatives of the photographs of Cholodus inaequalis. I thank John-Paul Hodnett for alerting me to the presence of janassid teeth in the ALMNH collections, based on photographs taken by Chase Egli, and Adiel Klompmaker and Brooke Bogan (ALMNH) for arranging the loan of specimens. The specimens in the ALMNH collections were collected by Gabe Ward. I thank Chris Duffin for discussions on Cypripediodens. I thank John-Paul Hodnett, Michał Ginter, and an anonymous reviewer for comments that greatly improved the manuscript. Metashape is a registered trademark of Agisoft LLC.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplementary section text should be Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7641571